LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Halloween decor may still be hanging and trick-or-treaters scattered throughout Lexington, but at Tom Nieman’s tree farm, it’s always Christmas.
“I like to see happy people, and if I can make someone's life happier with a tree, that suits me just fine,” said the longtime Christmas tree farmer and owner of Tom Nieman’s Christmas Tree Farm.
It’s taken a few decades to get to this point. Nieman learned early on that his farm’s signature Fraser fir wouldn’t grow overnight. In fact, the species isn’t really meant to grow in Kentucky at all.
Thinking back on the late '80s and early '90s, Nieman said, "We would get in a thousand trees, and if I had a hundred left I would be happy because we were losing so many, we just couldn’t make them grow, and we kept working at it, working at it."
After years of trial and error, Nieman learned that success was a matter of science, soil, seedlings sent from Seattle, and above all, rain.
“I promised myself a long time ago that I would never complain about having too much rain ever again, and I haven't,” laughed Nieman.
That being said, you can imagine the frustration of getting his Fraser firs to grow during a drought.
“This summer, we dumped in, I don't know how many, thousands of gallons of water on the trees to keep the little ones alive,” said Nieman. “The big ones, if they’re in the right environment to begin with, the right soil, they’ll maintain themselves, they can handle it, not forever but for a period of time they can handle it, but the little ones can’t."
Until this weekend, Lexington was a month’s worth of rain behind schedule for the fall season.
Waking up to rain over the weekend saved Nieman thousands of gallons of water and future Christmas trees.
Neiman told LEX 18 that only 19 Fraser firs out of 1,000 have died so far this year. While it may be Halloween, any rainy day might as well be Christmas for the Lexington Christmas tree farm.
Nieman’s Christmas Tree Farm is open for pre-tagging. You can learn more here.
